Cities Yokohama Yokohama Three Towers
Yokohama Three Towers
- Heritage/Temple/Shrine
The why: Three pre-war public buildings — the King, the Queen, and the Jack — that dominated the Kannai skyline before the bayfront went vertical. Local legend says spotting all three from a single point grants a wish; the legend is probably a foreign-sailor story, but the buildings themselves are genuinely fine architecture.
Gotcha / logistics: The "all three at once" viewpoints are marked with small commemorative plaques at Osanbashi Pier, on Nihon Odori Street, and in Red Brick Warehouse Park. Without the plaques you can walk right past the alignment.
The King is the Kanagawa Prefectural Government Main Building (1928), neoclassical with a Japanese-style tiled roof modelled on a five-storied pagoda — an example of the inter-war Imperial Crown style. The Queen is the Yokohama Customs Building (1934), the tallest of the three at 51 m, with an Islamic/Western fusion green dome. The Jack is the Yokohama Port Opening Memorial Hall (1917), red brick neo-Renaissance with a clock tower; it celebrated its centenary in 2017.
The legend aside, the three together are the cleanest reading of the architectural moment between the 1923 earthquake reconstruction and the war. A walk that takes in all three plaque viewpoints, plus a coffee stop in Kannai, is a comfortable two hours.
All three buildings are open to the public and remain in active government or cultural use. The Kanagawa Prefectural Government (the King) houses administrative offices but has a lobby open to visitors. The Yokohama Customs (the Queen) can be viewed from outside; limited interior access. The Port Opening Memorial Hall (the Jack) is used as a public venue and concert space — check its schedule if you want to see the interior, which is the most ornate of the three.
The three towers predate Minato Mirai 21, which means they were built for a Yokohama waterfront that had no Landmark Tower or Cosmo Clock framing them. Photographs from the 1930s show the King, Queen, and Jack dominating the bay view in a way no longer visible due to the later development. The effort of finding the alignment viewpoints is partly the effort of imagining that earlier skyline.
The Osanbashi Pier viewpoint (the most frequently cited plaque location) is also the best spot to photograph the three towers at sunset when the light hits the facades at a low angle. The pier itself is worth visiting separately for its wave-form wooden deck and unobstructed harbor panorama.
More in Yokohama
Minato Mirai 21
The reclaimed-land waterfront district that defines the modern Yokohama skyline — Landmark Tower, the Cosmo Clock Ferris wheel, wide pedestrian boulevards, and the cleanest bay views in the Kanto region.
Noge & Miyakobashi Harmonica Alley
A dense post-war drinking warren just across the tracks from Sakuragicho — over 600 bars in walking distance, Showa-era atmosphere intact, and the curving two-storey Miyakobashi Shotengai (Harmonica Alley) along the Ooka River. The closest you get in Kanto to a non-touristed Japanese drinking district.
Red Brick Warehouse
The two surviving Meiji/Taisho-era customs warehouses are the visual signature of the port and the cleanest example of adaptive reuse on the bay. Original iron doors and staircases, restored brick, now full of small shops, cafes, and a top-floor hall.
Sankeien Garden
A traditional Japanese landscape garden that doubles as an open-air architectural museum — historic buildings relocated here from Kyoto and Kamakura (a three-storied pagoda among them), set in classic stroll-garden grounds. Often skipped because it isn't on a train line, which is exactly why it's still calm.
Yokohama Chinatown
The largest Chinatown in Japan, with roots back to the 1859 port opening when Chinese traders brokered between Western merchants and Japanese suppliers. Roughly 250 shops and restaurants packed into a 500-metre square, demarcated by four ornate Paifang gates laid out by Feng Shui principles.
CupNoodles Museum
A design-forward museum about Momofuku Ando and the invention of instant ramen, designed by Kashiwa Sato. Pitched around "creative thinking" rather than corporate hagiography, and the My CupNoodles Factory lets you design your own packaging and pick four toppings from a counter — one of the more genuinely fun rainy-day activities in Minato Mirai.